Rowan Eldunari
by illusions-of-octarine
Summary: Rowan is a creature of magic; a human child, till she became one of Galbatorix's magical experiments. At the age of twenty, however, and with the fall of Feinster, her situation rapidly complicates when the magical consciousness merged with her mind begins to wake.


Disclaimer: I own none of the characters, settings, or things recognisably from Christopher Paolini's writing. Rowan, however, is all mine.

Rowan lifted her hand, carefully, a foot from the dusty ground. The spinning disc of dust and ash rose, hovering an inch under her palm.

She breathed, in, out. Calm.

She inverted her palm. The disc spun to follow, and fell apart, to glittering motes of dust air. A scowl marred the woman's face. A plain olive-skinned noble, she could have been mistaken for almost any other minor official's daughter, except for her unusual height and her mane of brown hair, streaked with white.

The white separated her from everyone else in Urû'baen. It marked her status as the unknown, the abomination, the eerie, fey creature of Galbatorix's own creation.

She smoothly rose to her feet, shaking the dust from her skirts, plain as any household maid's livery. The women surrounding the sparkling marble fountain, chatting and laughing, parted quickly as she approached to wash her hands in the basin. No one questioned her unusual magic. No non-magician ever thought to question her at all.

She existed like a ghost in the King's court, spinning through the courts of brightly dressed men and women, never spoken to and never spoken of. Then she had reached maturity, and the translucent white stripes in her hair had spread, and strengthened; the first of the signs that her mortality was catching up with her, at a scant two decades, a young woman whose body was tiring too fast, too soon.

She became more myth than reality; more story than person.

:::::

 _Ach ono bathas?_

Rowan made her lonely way down the hall, to her isolated room. She was required to demonstrate her magic twice a week to the magicians, but otherwise Galbatorix preferred to never see her. As a result, she was sequestered to a small corner of the palace – blissfully, beautifully alone – for the evenings, which she was not required to spend with the Lesser Court of minor nobles.

 _Ach ono bathas?_

She breathed slowly. Her chronically intermittent headache pounded again, incomprehensible words of ancient languages pushing against her mind.

 _Ach ono bathas?_

As soon as she entered her room, Rowan hurried to her bathroom and splashed her face with water. It rarely helped, but it made her feel better.

She had never told anyone – healer, magician, civilian – of the painful words that sometimes crashed against her consciousness. Anyone in all of Urû'baen would know better than to keep it from Galbatorix, and attention from _him_ was something to be avoided at all costs. A strange voice redolent with ancient power and speaking an equally old language would garner her far more attention than she could survive.

Her magical outbursts were one thing. Another _mind_ was something else altogether.

 _ **Anamnesis!**_

She closed her eyes and hissed at the onslaught, but the words and the consciousness that accompanied them were already fading away, to her relief. She would have some time before it occured again.

With another deep breath, she opened her eyes and stared into the mirror.

Her reflection was young, but with a mature face, with a straight nose and high, sharp cheekbones. Light brown hair, thick and straight, spilled over her shoulders, liberally streaked with white greyish strands, old and brittle. Grey eyes stared back from the mirror.

As always, she pushed down the twist of anxiety over her hair. If it continued at this rate, she would be completely gray in a few years. After that...there was nothing concrete, but Rowan suspected that she might die when there was no more brown left in her hair. It was her own personal clock, counting down the hours, weeks, and months until she was laid in her grave.

Breathe. In. Out.

She pushed herself back from the basin, and dried her hands on the thin towel laid there. The maids would be in to change it in a week, as always, like clockwork.

She turned to her desk. Her books, drawings and paints were undisturbed except for a missive placed on top of the brown oak. Curious, Rowan slid a knife under the seal and unfolded the paper.

A second later, the knife clattered to the floor.

::::

"Feinster has fallen!"

"Did you hear? The Dragon Rider and the elf princess killed a host of Shades."

"Feinster -"

"The seige-"

"The King's in a fury -"

Rowan slowed as she exited her isolated corridor. The swirling mass of humanity parted around her as she walked, a world apart from everyone else, a rock in a frantic current.

Feinster had fallen.

The Varden was on its way.

The war was suddenly very, _very_ real.

The Dragon Rider, the elves, all the magicians of Surda and the dwarves… Magic would be rampant. This would be the first battle fought at Uru'baen fought in... Rowan couldn't remember the capital being under siege in all of Galbatorix's reign. It would certainly be the first battle in decades where the invading army had almost as large a magical reserve as the Empire.

"Rowan!"

She froze, ( _No, no, no. Not now)_ and turned around.

"Murtagh."

"The King wants you. Follow me, now." He barked, striding past her. Her hackles rose, but she followed, at a much slower pace, as the crowd parted before his anger-fueled speed.

Murtagh was always angry. She could not remember a single time as children when he had not worn that leashed fury like a sword; a shield from his father, Galbatorix, the world...The only weapon of a frustrated boy who became a shackled man.

The greater the restraints he was under, the harder he was trammeled, the more slack he gave his fury. Ever since he….left ( _escaped_ , the dangerous part of her mind whispered), only to be brought back and bound by his true name, he had become a sharp storm of rage.

"Here."

Rowan stopped, frowning in distaste.

" _Now_ , Rowan! I hardly have the time!"

She stepped forward smartly, passing through the stone archway into the Magicians Wing. Almost immediately, the soft smell of pine enveloped her. Plants grew everywhere here, and animals scurried across the corridors unhindered, unwitting energy resources for the experimental magic conducted here everyday. The wing was more garden than building, especially towards the center, where Murtagh was taking her. To be observed. Again.

Several metres in, where the thick trunks of trees hid the outside world, and the air wafted with the scent of sap and greenery, a small cluster of magicians conferred quietly. She glanced around, and seated herself on the dark soil.

"Gather round. We do this today, or I'll hang you out on gibbets to rot."The deep, smooth voice threatened.

Rowan tensed warily. The magicians had been dangerously intense in the past week. However bad they had been, though, Galbatorix was worse. She shifted subtly.

 _What happened at Feinster?_

The magicians quickly spread out around her, to observe from every angle.

"Begin."

Only briefly hesitating, wary eyes on the magicians, Rowan stretched out a hand an inch above the soil, breathed, and pulled her hand up.

A rotating disk of the rich earth followed, far thicker than the dust circle of the morning. The imprint left in the ground was a perfect circle. A murmur spread through the gathering. Every time, she repeated the same weak, feeble trick, and every time they were just as surprised that she never had to speak a word.

She smoothly moved her other hand under the disk, palm up, breathed, _released_ , and breathed.

The disk was caught an inch from the other hand as it fell.

She breathed, _pushed_ , and breathed.

The disk lifted as if pulled into the air by its centre, briefly resisting, before flattening again into a spinning circle.

She couldn't count how many times she repeated the process before the game became automatic as her mind drifted to Feinster and the Varden, whatever Galbatorix wanted done obviously not happening immediately.

 _There's no way into Urû'baen for an invading force. They'll throw themselves against the walls till their death._

She breathed.

 _They won't find me. I'm safe._

A brief flash of self-hatred slashed through her.

 _They die to make us free. I'm the only one that's safer with Galbatorix ruling._

Rowan had no doubt that her status as a quasi-magical unnatural being of the King's own creation would gain her no friends among the elves or people of the Varden. The elves, at least, would see her as something mutilated and dangerous; a human child unnaturally twisted by magic.

 _In another life, I could have been like them; magic to the core, fey and wild._

The disk shivered in her hands. Her stomach swooped for a second. No one around her seemed to think it of note, however

 _Instead, I have a weakling magic that no one understands. And I am mortal; too mortal._

The elves were creatures of bright laughter and fickle amusements. Rowan knew she was grave and solemn, aged by her isolation and the knowledge of her own impending death.

She switched hands again, mindlessly transferring the circle of dirt.

As she moved, Galbatorix spoke.

"Murtagh. How went Gil'ead?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Rowan saw Murtagh's fist clench. The magicians went still.

 _Here it comes,_ she thought, resigned.

"You know." Murtagh grated out.

Galbatorix laughed lightly. "Indeed, for the battle. Did you bring back their bodies? I think they would have been 't you think, Rowan?"

Rowan kept her eyes on her steadily transferring disk, taking the risk that it wasn't a question that Galbatorix needed answered.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the ancient voice stirred, curious.

"They were dead. I left their bodies for the elves to find." Murtagh spoke, stone-faced. Galbatorix hummed acceptingly.

"While an inconveniance for me...A good move. They always did hold those two dear."

Rowan could feel her hands start to shake, against her will. That powerful...something... was swimming to the surface, waking to full consciousness inside her. Her head started to pound.

Not again. Not again.

When she was six, she blew out the windows in the old observation room.

When she was eleven, she shattered five square metres of marble.

And now….Galbatorix was baiting her again.

 _He wants to set me off,_ she realised. _Does he know about the voice?_

She noted distantly that she should be panicking.

 _Ach ono bathas?_

She breathed, and swapped hands.

 _Not now_ , she pleaded desperately. _Please not now_.

 _ **Ach ono bathas?**_

It hit like a tsunami. She bit her tongue and waited, slowly, torturously moving the disk from one hand to the other, as her conscious thought shattered like glass under the pain. Galbatorix kept speaking.

"Oromis and Glaedr, the last bastion of the elves...dead. It's satisfying, isn't it, knowing that such great titans have fallen by your hand."

Rowan's vision seared white, but not a muscle moved. The rampaging, titanic force beat itself out futilely in the confines of her mind.

Galbatorix was becoming more and more agitated.

"The last of the old Dragonriders...gone! The Cripple who was Whole." He sneered. "Fool." He turned to Rowan, crouching down before her. "Did you hear me, Ashantra?" He hissed angrily. "Do you remember your old friends? _Can you hear me?_ "

The magicians shied back before the King's mounting rage. Surging forward, he placed his hands on either side of Rowan's head, pushing towards her mind.

She didn't feel a thing, as always.

"I know you're there, Ashantra." He hissed, staring into her eyes. "Dreaming of flying, dreaming of the open sky. Such an intense desire, it takes over your every conscious thought." His mouth drew into a line. "The perfect defense."

He rose to his feet, striding away.

"Your Majesty..." One of the magicians began timidly.

"Send her back to her room. It didn't work - she's still human." Galbatorix was incensed. "Why does it never _work_?!" He roared. The magicians scurried from the garden, and Murtagh grabbed Rowan's arm and dragged her behind him.

"Let go of me." She hissed.

"I don't know what you're doing, or how you're doing it, but keep doing it." He replied forcibly, eyes on the marble corridor before them.

Rowan ground to a halt.

"You know what's wrong with me?" She pressed. "You know what the experiment was?"

Murtagh looked at her in furious exasperation. "Keep _moving_."

She didn't shift. "What is the King looking for?"

Murtagh looked around again, then at her, every muscle tense. "You might forget this, but I never can; the King can see into my mind. I am not going to get myself killed for your curiosity," he glared at her, "so _move_."

Rowan hesitated for a second, and then broke into a fast walk again. Murtagh easily kept up.

The crowds parted once again as they left the Magicians' Wing, and it was scant minutes before Murtagh shoved her in her room and slammed the door shut behind her. Her hands clenched.

Breathe. In, out.

 _Eka ono vae._

 _ **Anamnesis!**_

She collapsed on the floor in a dead faint.

:::::


End file.
